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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24309769">The way back home from hell</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banashee/pseuds/Banashee'>Banashee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, BAMF Clint Barton, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt Clint Barton, Loneliness, On the Run, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Nick Fury, Protective Phil Coulson, Rape Aftermath, Trauma, Trust Issues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:28:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,971</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24309769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banashee/pseuds/Banashee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is on the run, desperately trying to make his way back home. He is hurt and exhausted, and he doesn't know who he can even trust anymore.</p><p>*+~</p><p>Part 9 of my "Bad things happen Bingo".<br/>Square: Bloodstained Clothes</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton &amp; Phil Coulson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701046</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The way back home from hell</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi,<br/>so, because I love a good writing challenge, I'm now taking a part in the Bad Things Happen Bingo.<br/>https://badthingshappenbingo.tumblr.com/<br/>Please mind the tags!</p><p>    I'm cross-posting this to my tumblr, https://banashee.tumblr.com</p><p>    This is my ninth square: "Bloodstained Clothes".<br/>More Trigger Warnings are in the end notes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    
  </b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>The way back home from hell</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Looking back, he has no idea how he actually managed to make this work, but he’s sitting in the second hotwired car and making his way towards New York. </p><p> </p><p>At this point, it is sheer spite and willpower that keep him going, his body reacting automatically. </p><p>After his first initial escape from the hellhole they’d thrown him into, Clint managed to find some clothes on an accessible laundry line in front of a dark, quiet house. Faded blue jeans and an old grey t shirt. Nothing distinctive, and something that millions of other men wear as well - nothing memorable at all. </p><p>Some time later, Clint sees another car, abandoned by the side of an otherwise empty road in the middle of nowhere. He changes vehicles again. </p><p>At the time, he doesn’t think, just acts - he can be ruthless, especially when it comes to survival. </p><p>This ruthlessness is part of the reason he’s so good at his job, but it’s also a trait that he doesn’t always like in himself.</p><p>It’s useful, sure. But Clint doesn’t like hurting people, doesn't like taking their hard earned possessions just because it’s convenient. Right now though, he has no choice, and part of him, the part that is still present despite everything, feels bad for taking these things away from their owners.</p><p> </p><p>By the time he makes it back to New York, after changing cars again and hopping onto a train for part of the way, he is filthy and beyond exhausted. </p><p>Clint manages to doze a little bit on the train, well hidden in between wooden boxes and shipping containers, but it doesn’t last long. He’s too keyed up, too exposed out here, despite sitting on the floor, unseen and no one else being around. </p><p>His clothes are stained with blood, cuts and scrapes and tears everywhere, slowly oozing through the fabric. Bruises that have lingered for weeks, days and hours. He’s hurting all over. </p><p>If anyone saw him like this, thin and pale, shaking all over and disoriented, wearing clothes that don’t fit him and completely out of it, they’d be freaked out. Especially if they’d learn just how many miles he managed to drive on his own, out of sheer will power and miraculously without getting stopped by the police or causing an accident. </p><p>How he manages to stay upright at this point is a mystery to everyone including himself afterwards, but when he wakes up again, because he must have passed out along the way somewhere, he does so in a SHIELD medical facility. </p><p> </p><p>Clint blinks awake, heart beating fast and takes in his surroundings. Medical has become uncomfortably familiar to him over the years, no matter if it’s New York, the Helicarrier or any other base he has ever been to. It doesn’t matter.</p><p>His pain has dulled down, which is good, but it also makes him anxious about what happened while he was out. There is a heavy weight on his chest, and he’s almost choking on panic, wants to claw on his skin, but he’s too weak to do any of it. So he keeps panicking, silently and alone in a hospital room, until doctors and nurses come in to poke and prod.</p><p>He falls back asleep after that, and when he wakes up once again, the fear sits deep in his chest - he doesn’t know what happened to him while he was asleep. Everything in his head screams at him to get out of there.</p><p> </p><p>Clint forces himself to sit up, and everything around him starts spinning - he’s too out of it to do much, and when a big hand pushes him back to the bed, he whips around in an attempt to attack, but he’s too slow, too unfocused. Director Fury simply motions for him to stand down, and withdraws his hand right after. Clint is glad - hands are a really, <em> really </em> bad idea right now. He looks away, and spots his hearing aids on the bedside table. He puts them in, slowly, to buy himself some time. </p><p>When he looks up again, he managed to put his mask back in place, at least somewhat.</p><p> </p><p>“Sir.” he acknowledges, and he sounds rough, like he swallowed sandpaper. He feels like it, too.</p><p>“At ease, Agent Barton.” Fury rumbles, and places a bottle of water near Clint. “Want to fill me in on what the hell happened? Because it sure wasn’t the mission you have been assigned to.”</p><p>Clint barks a painful laugh.</p><p>“It sure wasn’t.” he rasps, and takes the water - still closed, not tempered with. He opens it, and drinks. Then he slowly tells Fury what happened - or at least, as much as he trusts him with at this moment. </p><p>He tells the Director how Agent Taylor changed plans, and completely blindsided Clint with it. He tells him where he went, and what intel he was able to secure. He tells him about breaking out on his own, not trusting to be picked back up again, even though those details are still fuzzy to him.</p><p>Clint has a hard time to stay clinical in his report, not letting anything show. But he manages to do so. Barely.</p><p> </p><p>Fury listens, and his one visible eye focuses on him the entire time. He lets him talk uninterrupted, only reacts when Clint has finished talking. He didn’t tell the director about the more personal details of this mission - and he really doesn’t want to. </p><p>“You should know Agent Barton, that Agent Taylor has been dealt with accordingly. What he did is not to be excused. And you’re on paid leave until further notice.”</p><p>“Sir…” Clint starts out, pausing then to swallow a lump in his throat. “I appreciate that, but I’m done here. I don’t know who I can trust, and my name is out there. They know my name, my face and I’m pretty sure I’m wanted for crimes I did not commit and for jobs I was ordered to do. I’m not staying.”</p><p>If it were anyone else, the flicker in the one dark eye would be understanding - at least it’s not pity. Small favors. </p><p>“This won’t be a problem, Agent. I understand why you are worried, but SHIELD will clear this up. You are one of our people and we protect our people. Heal up. Go home, rest. And for fuck’s sake, go talk to someone whose job it is to help with this sort of thing. You’re on paid leave. Until further notice. If you still want to leave then, we’ll talk.” Fury tells him, and it’s clear that this is his last word on the matter. </p><p>Clint doesn’t believe him, though. How could he, after everything? He remains wordless, staring ahead and burning a hole in the wall with his eyes. </p><p><em> ‘Keep it together. </em>’ he tells himself, and does just that - he is used to it by now. </p><p>The director disappears soon after, and Clint is left silent in seething anger - he feels trapped and betrayed, and as soon as he can manage, he leaves medical.</p><p>No one stops him this time, and he isn’t sure if that’s because they deem it safe for him to go, knowing that he will always leave as soon as he can, or if they just don’t give a shit anymore - Clint finds that it is all the same to him.</p><p> </p><p>Clint is still hurting, shaking violently, and he only makes it as far as his apartment in Brooklyn. If he had any amount of strength left, he would have gone to one of his safe houses. Some place that no one knows about, where they won’t go looking for him.</p><p>But as it is, he barely makes it through the door and to the couch before he collapses, head buried in his hands as everything is crashing down around him. Unconsciously, his fingers pull on his hair in the process, just he can focus on something - anything. He remains there for who even knows how long, but by the time he looks back up again, coming back to reality, it’s already dark outside.</p><p> </p><p>When he is able to pull himself back up again, he slowly walks into the bathroom, piling his clothes on the floor and leaving them there - he doesn’t care. When he gets under the spray of water, he turns it as hot as it will go, and painfully so. It’s hot enough to almost boil, and he scrubs himself with too much soap and for way too long, until his skin is red, raw and irritated. The feeling of hands that grab too hard and grip everywhere never disappears, no matter how long or how often he keeps trying to wash it off.</p><p>Clint gives up when he can no longer stand upright in the shower. Reluctantly, he climbs out, gripping the sink when his legs are about to give out under him and carefully makes his way into the other room.</p><p> </p><p>It takes his last bit of strength, to walk into the bedroom to get dressed in something clean and dry that is his own. The clothes should feel familiar and comforting, but as it is, after weeks locked away, the pants hang low on his hips and the long sleeved shirt dwarfs him more than it should.</p><p>Then, Clint gets his personal phone from the locked drawer in his desk. A hidden compartment. Irony has it that he actually forgot to pack it for his latest mission, which is a good thing, or he probably would have lost it by now. </p><p>He settles down on the bed, holding onto the headboard for support because every part of his body is aching. Then he curls up under the blankets. </p><p> </p><p>Clint forces himself to breathe in and out a few times, and it gets more and more shaky. Wetness blurs the edges of his vision, and he doesn’t try to hold back the tears that silently roll down his face. </p><p>He clutches the phone in one hand, pressing it close to himself as if it could mimic a comforting human presence.  </p><p>A while later, when he can breathe just a little bit easier, Clint types out a short text message, hands shaking while he does so. He is wiping one sleeve across his face, in an attempt to clear his vision again and pulls the covers tighter.</p><p>He’s home now and he should feel safe, but as it is, all he can feel is exhausted. Exhausted, scared and expecting his front door to be kicked down at any moment.</p><p>It takes him longer than it should, but he finally manages to finish and send the text. Then he throws his phone onto the pillow next to him, turning away and then he can’t hold himself together anymore. </p><p>He’s feeling utterly lost and alone, and he doesn’t know what to do. So he ends up crying himself to sleep, until he finally passes from pure exhaustion.</p><p> </p><p>*+~</p><p> </p><p>A few hundred miles away, on a different SHIELD base, Phil Coulson's personal phone vibrates with a text message. </p><p>He just got back in that day and he finally finds the time to check the device after the debrief and after mission reports are done. His OP took way longer than expected, and he’s been completely cut off from any outside communication for the entire time. </p><p>Phil opens the message right away when he sees that it’s from Clint . When he reads it though, the smile is wiped off of his face in an instant. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Please come over when you can. Or call. Anything.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The words send a cold dread down his spine, because whatever this is, it must be bad. </p><p>He turns on his heel, heading back the way he just came to catch a plane to New York. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>*+~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Square: <b>Bloodstained Clothes</b></p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Trigger warnings:<br/>- dealing with Trauma<br/>- Rape aftermath<br/>- PTSD<br/>- Paranoia and trust issues<br/>- blood and injury<br/>- implied self-harm (hot water and excessive washing)<br/>- if you would like me to add anything else, please let me know</p></blockquote></div></div>
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